Faculty Hall Announcement

Message to USC Faculty

From: Michael W. Quick, Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs

April 26, 2019

I’m delighted to announce the opening of Faculty Hall, located in Doheny Memorial Library. This space is designed to honor you, our faculty, who are the heart of the university, and celebrate USC’s commitment to academic excellence.

Since our founding in 1880, our university has had a faculty to be proud of. They include scientific pioneers, civil rights leaders, fearless innovators. They serve the good of our local community and the wider world, provide outstanding clinical care, solve complex problems, and make fundamental discoveries. They are artists, engineers, physicians, musicians, communicators, teachers, and many more.  The contributions our faculty make to the world have been recognized with National Academy memberships, MacArthur Fellowships, National Medals, and Nobel Prizes.

The exhibits in Faculty Hall reflect the growing distinction and diversity of our faculty over the years.

There are large-screen and small-screen video displays as well as static exhibits. A rotating sampling of faculty books from the archives is showcased. The Hall, in DML Room 121, can be a place for prospective students, faculty recruits, and other visitors to get a sense of the wide range of our academic excellence, past and present. The room is also home to the Academic Senate and the Center for Excellence in Teaching, and serves as a student study hall. We hope that you will use it for special events, readings, and lectures, as well.

This will be a living museum that will change and be updated. The current electronic and physical exhibits start with Elizabeth Follansbee, the first female medical professor in California, and continue on to the present, including current Distinguished Professors, University Professors, and Provost Professors. Touchscreens will provide the means to future links to halls of fame for each school, and recognition of additional faculty who have received external and internal honors.

In preparing the initial exhibits, all faculty were solicited for suggestions. Both the Honorary Degrees Committee and an Academic Senate committee reviewed lists of those to be recognized at this time.

I want to thank the two faculty committees for their reviews, Vice Provost Marty Levine for guiding the project from its inception, university archivist Claude Zachary for his support, Davina Wolter, of the Iovine & Young Academy faculty, for her design, and the faculty and deans who offered suggestions. I am grateful to Dean Catherine Quinlan and the USC Libraries for making the space available.

Several USC schools already have their own exhibitions honoring faculty, and I invite all our schools and departments to develop their own. Together with our annual Academic Honors Convocation, these are ways to celebrate the academic and artistic achievements of our colleagues. I hope you enjoy this new space and return often to see it evolve.

cc: Wanda Austin
Academic Senate
Academic Deans
President’s Cabinet
Provost’s Cabinet